The Opposition has been demanding Provincial Council (PC) Elections and Local Government (LG) Elections during the past several months. Last week the `service’ rendered by the nine Provincial Councils was revealed through the National Audit Office (NAO) Report. The report in a way explains why the Opposition is demanding PC and LG polls and not the Presidential Election (PE) or a General Election (GE).
According to media reports, the nine PCs had spent Rs. 298 billion to pay their employees’ salaries while spending only Rs. 16 billion for the services they carried out last year (2022). The total amount spent on development activities is just four percent of the expenditure on salaries alone. In other words, the percentage spent on salaries and other recurrent expenditure is 96 percent. This is the reality no matter who demands PC or LG elections. It is not surprising at all that no politician from any political party pays attention to this issue because it is their henchmen who get paid for doing nothing. The other set of culprits are the public servants.
The report also stated that last year the nine PCs spent Rs.403,544 million and out of this amount Rs. 387,118 million was allocated for paying salaries for the employees and other recurrence expenses. A total of 82 percent of the income of those PCs last year came in the form of grants given by the Central Government. This tells the entire story. There should be an end to this waste of public money for nothing since Sri Lanka is currently facing its gravest financial crisis in history.
Last week, the media reported that the two female officers attached to the Kandy Municipal Council (KMC) had been questioned in connection with embezzling over Rs. 21 million. One of the female officials had taken an additional Rs.5.1 million from public funds for the wedding of her daughter. While all are pointing fingers at politicians, this is how officials and public servants steal public money on the sly.
It seems that the demand of all Opposition political parties is not based on the people’s welfare and what they want is salaries for their henchmen and nothing else, no matter what happens to the country’s economy. The selfishness of politicians belonging to various political parties is very clearly evident.
The functioning of PCs, MCs, Urban Councils (UCs) and Pradeshiya Sabhas is rather pathetic. They never give approval for any documents without obtaining bribes from ordinary people. This is what ordinary people experience in their day-to-day lives. Those PCs and all such bodies never deliver a proper service for the tax money paid by ordinary people. They do not even remove garbage properly.
According to the existing law, all houses located within 100 meters from main roads should pay tax to the Pradeshiya Sabhas but they never collect garbage from homes that pay such taxes, even if the houses are located within 100 meters from the main road. They only collect garbage from the houses located away from the main roads. There is no point in talking about their other services.
Those bodies have started new tactics to snatch people’s hard-earned money. Even for a minor requirement, they provide people with a set of documents and charge money for “processing” them. They enter the data online while the customer is sitting in front of them at the office. Then they visit the relevant sites for “inspection”. At this point, a bribe is usually taken by the driver or another person and not by the official(s) directly. From the peon to the Pradeshiya Sabha Chairman, bribes are demanded even for a simple matter.
Whenever poor or less privileged people approach them to obtain a service, they waste the valuable time and money of those people as much as possible and make them visit the office several times but even after visiting 100 times, those employees never do their job. A System Change is seriously required to change these sick practices.
When powerful or rich individuals approach them, they happily deliver the service as soon as possible, maybe within hours or days because of the bribe money they receive or due to fear. They see various defects in house or building plans brought by the poor and the helpless but they never see any defects in building plans of the rich and the powerful.
Often those poor families never get a chance to build their own house before their demise because of the corrupt practices of employees attached to all those State bodies. By the time they receive approval for their building plan, the aged parents are dead or the family has already spent all the money they had to build the house.
Enough is enough and these types of practices that have existed in some State bodies such PCs and LG bodies for several decades need to be changed as soon as possible, especially before holding any election and appointing new members for them.
